PhoneNews.com contacted T-Mobile at least a few times to see if they would make good on LG’s offering of Jelly Bean for the Optimus L9. They never got back to us with an answer. Today T-Mobile confirmed that they begun pushing the update to devices earlier this week.

T-Mobile hasn’t had the best track record in offerning updates. The carrier has passed on numerous firmware and software updates that have been readily offered by the manufacturer, typically refusing to comment. When we heard no answer on the L9, we were fearing the worst. LG however, in an effort to make an earnest competition with rival Samsung, may be changing course and offering to pay or assume the burden for software updates.

The phone manufacturer had said it would update all Optimus L9-era devices to Jelly Bean, in line with Samsung’s similar commitment to update rival Galaxy S II-era devices to Android 4.1.

The T-Mobile version of the L9 will be pushed Android 4.1.2. Similar to other Jelly Bean upgrades, LG is pushing the older Android 4.1 branch of Jelly Bean over Android 4.2. Very few phone manufacturers, even Google’s own Motorola, have adopted Android 4.2, instead coalescing around the previous generation. While Android 4.2 got off to a rough start with show-stopping bugs hitting the Calendar and other apps, today it is considered more stable than the Android 4.1 branch.

The Android 4.1.2 upgrade will likely be the last major upgrade for the L9, but will be significant in adding Google Now and other key features that Android 4.0.4, Ice Cream Sandwich, currently lacks on the device. The update bulletin page also touts device-specific security improvements, and fixing Mobile Hotspot as well as USB Tethering, which were broken on the device.

Finally, if you do have an L9, you may be rolling the dice on when you’ll begin getting the update. T-Mobile claims they begun pushing the update on the 22nd, but have capped the number of users that can pull down the update. If your phone reports no update is available, too many people have probably downloaded the update today.

PhoneNews.com Staff articles are typically in-depth articles. These are articles that involve multiple, and at times, several staff members who each contribute to the hard-hitting coverage that we deliver here.

Do a Google search of “force android ota”. It will tell you to clear and stop the Google Services Framework and then go check for update. This works for some people after 1 to many attempts. I tried numerous times with no luck and then by accident I figured out how to do it. What worked for me was doing everything but the last step. Clear and stop as instructed and go to the check for update screen but DO NOT tap on the check for update button. Just leave the phone like this. It will show the last check date of 12/31/1969 (because you cleared the cache). Mine started to update in a few minutes. I did the same for my wife’s phone and it took about 20 minutes before it started to download. By the way, leave wifi on before doing any of this so that it will start downloading automatically.

Got the update this morning and my phone keeps restarting, can’t connect to my cell service, the camera won’t start, and has frozen about 7 times now (not exaggerating), and lags constantly, what’s happening?

It’s important to note there are two sets of instructions above, “clear and stop” and “stop and clear”. As of this post I can confirm neither of these change the last check date to 12/31/1969 or in any way cause the update to begin. Further, any change carrier side such as complete removal of the update is unrelated as the last check date is local.